Word: forme
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Kindle and Beyond E-books and their like have been around in one form or another for more than a decade, but people weren't lining up to buy them until Amazon launched its Kindle a little over a year ago. The Kindle wasn't cooler than any of the other e?readers out there - the first-generation version doesn't even have a touchscreen - but it offered one advantage key to saving publishing: every device can connect to a high-speed data network, virtually anywhere, and download books and periodicals easily and cheaply. I've grabbed books on demand...
...fact, such a directive already exists in some form - the international Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which governs the legal framework for activities in space. Best known for banning governments from putting nuclear weapons into orbit, the treaty also requires space-faring nations to avoid "harmful contamination" of other worlds while exploring the solar system. Human beings have yet to set foot on other planets, so the risk today comes from bacteria that can hitch a ride on unmanned spacecraft like NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander, which arrived on the red planet's surface last May. (See pictures...
...that, for the past few years of his life, the entertainment world didn't pay much attention to George Carlin. Unlike his great contemporary Richard Pryor - whose slow decline from multiple sclerosis prompted years of tributes and early eulogies, before his death in December 2005 - Carlin had the bad form to keep working to the very end, maintaining a nearly full schedule of concert appearances, drawing crowds of devoted (mostly baby-boomer) fans, continuing to come up with edgy, often reckless, occasionally brilliant material. Other stand-up stars, like Pryor or Jerry Seinfeld, didn't win their greatest acclaim until...
...Czech Republic has decided to celebrate the start of its presidency of the European Union by commissioning a sculpture that is controversial to the point of insult. Entitled “Entropa” and mounted in the foyer of the EU, the eight ton monstrosity takes the form of a model kit, with pieces intended to humorously represent each member country. The humor lies in the shocking nature of the stereotypes selected—Italy, for example, is depicted as a football pitch, whose players seem to be masturbating with their footballs...
...response to an unsatisfying way of life. "The hime-kei girls removed the borders between the virtual and real worlds," says Imada, who believes the phenomenon is rooted in a rejection of the goals of advancement through hard work in an ailing market economy. "They longed for a different form of self-expression and sought a more meaningful way of life." Searching for meaning through the fashions of a doomed European aristocracy may be a form of protest against a business-driven contemporary Japanese culture, but it's certainly made healthy profits for the Jesus Diamante label. Today, the company...